Chinese OEM Xiaomi publishes MIUI open source code

A lot of you are familiar with MIUI, a family of community-authored custom ROMs that’s popular with modders due to its heavily altered user interface. The project notably became the very first custom ROM to be features on a retail device, namely Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi’s MI-One. Now the company has published the source code for the latest MIUI ROM, including several applications that were previously closed-source. Developers can download the code from Github and compile or kang to your heart’s content.

MIUI is based on code from the Android Open Source Project and CyanogenMod, which publishes its code regularly. The interface takes elements from Android, iOS, WebOS and other sources to create a unique look with features you won’t find anywhere else. The code released by Xiaomi is the latest Gingerbread 2.3.7 build; they may be releasing it in preparation for the Ice Cream Sandwich version, MIUI 4. While the code released today won’t immediately work for other devices (even those phones and tablets supported by the MIUI developers themselves) it’s a great place to start for devs who want to build a modified ROM or port it to an unsupported phone. A lead developer said that more code will be released in the near future.

Speaking of MIUI 4, the work on the modified Ice Cream Sandwich ROM is continuing steadily. The updated ROM will first be release for the MI-One, which has sort of become the “Nexus” phone for the family of software, then expanded to the devices supported through the expanded project. Updated builds for all official MIUI ROMs are released every Friday, and supported phones include popular models like the HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy S II, Nexus One and Motorola Milestone (DROID).